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French Team Sitting Out 2016 WRC To Focus On Next-Gen Rally Car, Scrapping WTCC Program After 2016

Citroën has announced its intentions to sit out the 2016 World Rally Championship in order to focus its attentions on 2017, when it will withdraw from the World Touring Car Championship that it currently dominates.

Sébastien Loeb has conquered the WRC, Pikes Peak, and the Race of Champions. Now he's out to conquer the Nürburgring in the World Touring Car Championship, and as you can see from this latest video, he's been practicing.

Volvo is in the midst of a rebirth of sorts. It's completely revitalizing its product lineup, it's rolling out new powertrain technologies, and as it announced just the other day, it's completely changing directions when it comes to its marketing and sales approach. That will include selling new cars online, pulling out of all but the most essential global auto shows, and ceasing its sponsorship of all activities save for the Volvo Ocean Race. But what about its motor racing activities on land?

With the Russian market growing into one of the largest in the world, automakers from around the world descended this past weekend on the Moscow Motor Show in pursuit of a slice of that pie. But you can bet that Lada, one of Russia's biggest domestic players, wasn't going to miss out on the opportunity to roll out its latest, and that's just what it did.

Touring car racing has never been as popular in the United States as it has been overseas. After all, it's NASCAR that garners the lion's share of attention when it comes to tin-top racing in America. For the last couple of years, however, the World Touring Car Championship has held a race at Sonoma Raceway in California, but that race has now been dropped from the calendar for this year.

Head out to the Nürburgring, and you can witness all manner of racing. Most of it remains confined, however, to the GP-Strecke, where you'll find superbikes, DTM touring cars, GT racing cars and even the occasional Formula One race competing in top-level world championships. But not on the infamous Nordschleife – a circuit so dangerous that F1 left it in 1976 and the World Sports Car Championship (precursor to today's World Endurance Championship) packed it up in '83. These days, the

There are auto marques you'd associate with racing and those you wouldn't. Names like Audi, Porsche, Nissan, Ferrari, Ford and Chevy would fall firmly in the former category. Lada... slightly less so. The Russian automaker is remembered (when it is remembered, anyway) for its no-frills, Soviet-era automobiles – many of which it's still making today. Hardly the kind of machinery you'd want to take to the racetrack, but Lada and its parent company AvtoVAZ set out to upset that notion when it

With just 240 horsepower on tap, the Alfa Romeo 4C may not be the most powerful sports car on the market. But its lightweight construction ensures that it has a power-to-weight ratio better than cars with twice the output. In short, it belongs at the front of the pack, and that's just where it will be for this year's World Touring Car Championship.

If you thought the Honda Civic Type R prototype we drove in Japan looked cool, and that the Civic Tourer that Honda will race in the British Touring Car Championship next year looks even cooler, just take a look at this.

On top of the funktastic Cactus Concept, Citroën showed its new C-Elysée racecar, which will campaign the World Touring Car Championship with Sebastian Loeb and Yvan Muller at the helm. The C-Elysée racer debuted back in July packing a 1.6-liter, turbocharged four with 380 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque.

Citroën has released the first images of its latest racecar, the C-Elysee, which will be contested by Sebastien Loeb in the World Touring Car Championship next year. Based on the C-Elysee sedan, a model first shown at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, the WTCC variant has been designed for the new regulations set to be imposed by the FIA.

You didn't think that Sébastien Loeb was just going to completely give up racing altogether, did you? Sure, the dynamic French driver may have decided to call it quits in the World Rally Championship with nothing left to prove (he did, after all, thoroughly dominated the sport from 2003 through 2012 and won the Driver's Championship each of those nine years), but the draw of competition is apparently too great to ignore.

Question: When does the desire to win dictate that a racing driver try to drive slower than everyone else? Answer: When those drivers are attempting to qualify for the opening of the World Touring Car Championship at the Salzburgring track in Austria.

Drumming up a little excitement for the 2013 FIA World Touring Car Championship, Honda brought its new Civic WTCC car to the bright lights of Geneva for all to see. Honda joined WTCC late last year entering the final three races. The racing outfit will run this year's entire 12-round season, which kicks off later this month in Italy.

Speaking for himself and not the company, head of Honda Research and Development, Yoshiharu Yamamoto, told Autocar that when it comes to Formula One, "We do look up at those races and hope that one day we can take part again." In order for that one day to occur, a few things would need to happen: the rules would need to change and Honda would need to prove itself capable of winning in the World Touring Car Championship. Neither one is assured.

Technical details are still scant, but we do know a tiny bit more about Honda and its plans for a World Touring Car Championship entrant based on the Euro-spec 2012 Civic. The automaker has unveiled its HR412E, a 1.6-liter, turbocharged and direct injected gas engine, and let us know its plans for getting the engine and car into some races: Tiago Monteiro will race one example in the final three rounds of the season, beginning with Suzuka, and multiple touring car champion Gabriele Tarquini will

Seeing a Chevrolet Camaro setting the pace at a NASCAR or Indy race is not uncommon, but its latest tour of duty has taken GM's modern ponycar to another form of racing altogether: the World Touring Car Championship.